


Scars Make Better Lovers

by cristianoronaldo



Category: Football RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 16:41:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/994179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cristianoronaldo/pseuds/cristianoronaldo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sergio sells himself. Iker pays. Love, life, years pass, and then they don't pass anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars Make Better Lovers

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't read this over. I'll read it over after I post. someone check me for typos if you want please and thank you

It's light in the room and it's not like Iker knows him or anything. Not like that anyway. He knows what his body likes and what his mouth whispers and how his tongue sounds wet while he pants. But he doesn't know his favorite color or his shoe size or what kind of suit he would wear to meet his parents for lunch. He knows his name, first not last, and his profession and how much he costs for the night, but nothing else.

Iker knows he's not really supposed to know anything else and that was the point. They didn't know anything about each other. That was the nice thing. But it'd been three months and they'd met five times, and Iker was certain he wasn't the only one who remembered.

The man, Sergio (if that even was his real name), moved to flick the lights off, but Iker gestured for them to remain on. He threw the money on the bed, made a comment about how he wasn't really in the mood after all. Sergio shrugged and sat on the edge of the bed, talked quietly and politely about how he didn't really have anything else to do so he might as well just sit there, unless Iker wanted him gone in which case he would leave.

"It's fine," Iker said after hesitating. "I don't really have anywhere else to be either." That was a lie. He was meant to be meeting his girlfriend's sister, but he wasn't really in the mood for that either because he was getting that fatalistic dread gripping his insides, that fear and that hope that they would soon break up. His refusal to show up wasn't exactly helping to relieve the fear.

Sergio's eyes were closed and he was laying back on the bed, his shirt on the floor, his pants unzipped, hips thrusting forward invitingly. Iker was in the mood, physically that is, but his mind couldn't keep up with what his body wanted and he felt like he was fighting senselessly, grappling with Fate.

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah?"

Iker made a sound at the back of his throat.

"I just don't get that many thoughtful ones."

"What do you normally get?"

Sergio thought about it, squinted his eyes and bit his lip. "People who want to be dominated." He shrugged. "People who want to dominate me." He grinned so hard Iker thought his lip might split. "Animals, really, but they're not so bad."

"Not so bad," Iker echoed, and he let his head fall back against the wall with a rough bang.

"You're just lonely, that's why. Isn't it?"

Iker threw him a confused, half-angry look. "I'm not lonely. That's not it. I'm an animal like the rest of them."

"Sure," Sergio allowed. "Sure."

It was quiet for a long time after that. Iker left after an hour or two and he threw some extra money on top of the stack because it wasn't in Sergio's job description to ask if he was alright, but he did, and Iker knew it wasn't an easy thing to do.

He ended up meeting his girlfriend's sister, an hour late and leaving a terrible impression. HIs girlfriend broke up with him that night, boxed up her things and left. She didn't shed a tear on her way out, and neither did Iker. He wanted to though. He wnated to lose somebody and cry and feel his insides tearing themselves apart. He didn't want to feel so numb.

+

The next time he saw Sergio, he didn't pay. They were at the grocery store and Sergio was arguing with someone near the juice. "Yeah," he spat angrily, "Better not touch me. You might catch something. Better alert the entire store not to touch me in case I infect everyone, but you should probably admit why you know what I am before you start getting all high and mighty."

He stormed past the stunned man. A priest, Iker noted. He did the sign of the cross at Sergio's mention of their transgressions. He put his juice back like it was a penance of sorts. Turned his basket around and headed for the exit, mumbling a half-hearted apology as his basket brushed Sergio's back.

But Sergio was staring at Iker and didn't notice, but his hand was grasping the air a moment too late as he reached to grab the basket that brushed him. He left his hand there, reaching for nothing, while his eyes searched Iker's face for some hint that he'd overheard their conversation.

"Pretty rude of him," Iker said quietly. He moved past Sergio to pick out a carton of orange juice. He accidentally picked up the one with pulp but he felt stupid for making the mistake, so he just left it in his basket and resolved to throw it out at home and never attempt to buy orange juice again.

"Yeah," Sergio agreed. He eyed the orange juice in Iker's basket. "I'm not going to lose you as a client, am I?" He grinned that lip-splitting grin again.

Iker shrugged. "Not because of that."

"Because of something else?"

"No." Iker squirmed. "Well. I don't know."

"Ah," Sergio sighed. "You're one of those. You resolve to be a better person and then you call when you break down." He smiled again. "That's okay. I love those. I really gotta hand it to human nature for putting money in my pocket."

Iker wrinkled his nose like he didn't understand. Sergio nodded once, uncomfortably, and left. Iker replaced the orange juice in his basket, quickly, before anyone could notice.

He saw Sergio on his way out, nodded again, and this time Sergio smiled.

+

It wasn't until years later that they met again. Five years, seven months, and twenty-one days to be exact but neither of them were counting. They later approximated about four years, almost five, but they always had that nagging feeling that they were wrong and it bothered them that they could never remember, often saying, "You never know it's the last time you're going to see someone, you know?"

They met at a restaurant, and they were both eating alone. They decided to join tables for old time's sake because their years of being uncomfortable over a little sexual history were behind them. Sergio was retired, not because he was too old but because he was wealthy enough to do whatever he wanted (rich benefactor, long story) and he no longer wanted to sell himself.

Iker was still employed as a professor, but now he wore glasses at dinner and he refused to drink. HIs hand shook as he took the check from Sergio, and Sergio demanded it back. Said he was trying to pay Iker back.

"I think I got what I paid for," Iker replied, in that same quiet, serious voice Sergio had almost forgotten.

"Right." Sergio hesitated. Smiled, though it wasn't the same. There was no danger of his lips splitting and Iker looked down and frowned. "Well," Sergio continued, tapping his fingers on the bill, "Let me pay anyway."

"Alright," Iker agreed, and he smiled again. "I had a nice time. Thank you. Thanks for, you know... I don't know. Thanks for this."

"No problem." There was a long pause, then, "I'm just sorry I lost you as a customer."

And all at once, Iker felt like launching himelf across the table and kissing Sergio so hard his pleasant exterior would break and Iker could posses those parts he kept hidden.

"Yeah, same." He laughed breathlessly.

"Goodbye then," Sergio said, and he stood up. Iker opened his mouth to say something, to make him stop, beacuse there would be no more chance encounters, but Sergio turned back around first. Set his phone on the table and asked Iker to punch in his number.

"One more change encounter is too much to ask for," he explained.

+

They continued to meet for years, as friends. By Year One they moved into the same neighborhood. By Year Two, they had a group of friends in common and sometimes Iker came to visit Sergio's grandma in her nursing home. She talked about how proud of Sergio she was, about how proud she was that Sergio was a lawyer, and Iker nodded and said he was proud too. By Year Three, Iker was sure he was in love with Sergio. By Year Four, Sergio was married and divorced and convinced he was irreparably broken by a woman he hadn't even been in love with. He confessed to Iker, much later, that he didn't so much love her; he loved the energy, the motion, the life that constantly existed around her and, once it was gone, he felt broken and alone and empty.

By Year Five, Sergio looked at Iker a little differently. His rich benefactor cut him off and he began to run out of money. That was the year he and Iker became roommates. Sergio wandered around naked and made breakfast. Sometimes when it was cold in the mornings, he'd open the windows and let more air in and crawl in bed next to Iker. Iker was always awake, being a light sleeper, but he never opened his eyes.

"Do you ever regret that first time?" Sergio asked one morning, because he knew Iker was never sleeping, could tell just from the way he breathed, just from the way his eyelashes fluttered.

"No," Iker answered, without hesitation. "Why would I ever regret something like that? Why would I ever regret you?"

Sergio shrugged. "Lots of people do." He picked at a loose thread on the bedspread.

"Well, if I were lots of people, you wouldn't be here right now. Alright?" He nudged Sergio's shoulder with his forehead, listened to his unsteady breathing until he felt the nod.

"Alright."

By the time the anniversary of their second chance restaurant meeting rolled around for the sixth time (neither of them realized it was the day; they couldn't keep track of stuff like that), they slept in the same bed. Not in the way Iker wanted. Just pressed up against each other and smiling in their sleep because of the presence of the other.

Iker started to make coffee in the mornings and Sergio slept in. Sometimes he felt weak and tired and most nights he couldn't sleep. He got up, pulled off the sheet Iker always kicked away anyway, dragged it to the living room and sat there, shaking and shivering listening to the sounds of the house in the night.

Iker didn't think anything of it, just thought maybe Sergio was too hot in the middle of the night and that's why he found him on the couch in the mornings. He didn't think anything of it until Sergio was in bed with a fever, begging Iker to stay on the other side of the room because he was going to catch it. It. Whatever it was.

"Sergio, I'm fine," he said, pressing a wet towel to his forehead. "You're sick and you need someone to take care of you."

"No," Sergio snapped, but his eyes were defeated. He slumped back against the pillow. "I'm serious, Iker. Don't touch me. I'm serious." He sounded delirious from the fever. Iker pressed a hand to his forehead, and Sergio immediately reared back, eyes full of fear. "Don't touch me, Iker," he said, and it was obvious he was trying to yell, but his throat was too wrecked. "Don't."

Iker sighed, not thinking anything of it. Set the towel down. "I'll be back in an hour when you're ready to stop being such a child about this. You're sick. I'm here to take care of you. If you really don't want any help, you should have moved into someone else's house. But you're sick in mine and I don't want your sickness to ruin my fun. Alright? So I'm taking care of you."

Sergio glared.

"I'll be back in an hour. Criminal Minds is on."

When Iker came back, Sergio was scratching at something on his arm. Red and large and terrifying. He was scratching at it like he needed to break the skin to live, and Iker launched himself forward, holding Sergio back. "Stop it, Sergio. What the fuck? You're going to break skin and then I have to deal with your blood all over the place."

Sergio made a strangled noise at the back of his throat. Iker thought maybe blood made him sick, though he'd never noticed that reaction before. Although he'd always been very careful about not cutting himself, always cutting the vegetables for dinner and making sure Iker's fingers were nowhere near the knife or him.

Sergio relaxed against the bed, pink in the face. Defeated, he shook his head. "Iker, something's wrong." And Iker knew at once that it wasn't the flu and it wasn't a cold; he reached for his keys.

+

Iker waited outside while the doctors spoke to Sergio. Some of them hung their heads. The one with the clipboard didn't stop nodding for about five minutes. He put a hand on Sergio's shoulder, and Sergio's eyes looked wet. He looked down, small and tired in his hospital gown.

They had admitted him right away after Sergio spoke to someone for less than a minute. They rushed him in and Iker was left chasing them, chasing Sergio as he'd always done.

As the group of doctors left the room, Iker stopped the one with the clipboard. She had glasses and a sweet face, curly hair to her shoulders and earrings that looked like stars. He thought she might be able to give him the best news.

"Excuse me?" he called. He pulled at the scarf around his neck nervously. "Can you tell me what's wrong with him?"

"Any relation to the patient?"

"I'm his--" There was a lump in his throat. "I'm his friend. His-- roommmates. We're roommates. We live together. Practically family."

"There's only so much information I can give you," she said, tucking the clipboard behind her. "What I can tell you so far is that his immune system is destroyed. If he were perfectly healthy, this would be a normal cold and he'd get rid of it in a few days, but." She hesitated, bit her lip, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "There's only so much I can tell you," she repeated. "You'll have to speak with the patient yourself for more information." She walked away, following her group of doctors, her heels clacking against the floor.

Iker burst into Sergio's room, biting the inside of his cheek as hard as he could manage without crying out. He slammed the door shut behind him, drawing a nervous look from one of the nurses outside. She slowed down her cleaning and kept an eye on them.

"What the hell is going on Sergio?" He tried to sound angry, but his voice just sounded broken instead.

Sergio smiled and, for the first time in a long time, his lips stretched so wide Iker thought they might split. He choked on what might have been laughter. "I'm sick, Iker. I've been sick for a long time. It's one of those things that likes to hide. Nothing to worry about, I promise."

Iker relaxed into a chair next to his bed, felt the plastic crumple beneath his fingers as he clutched at the cushion. "Okay. Nothing to worry about." He took a deep breath. "So what's wrong. You've been sick for awhile. How long and why the fuck wasn't I informed?"

"Since before I met you, Iker."

Iker was grasping at a half-formed thought, and he shook his head. "I--what?"

"For a long time. It's nothing to worry about. You heard the doctor. I just have a cold."

"Sergio--"

"Iker," the other man cut in, "I'm not fucking with you, okay? I wouldn't lie to you about something like this. I am okay. Go home and get some sleep."

Iker went home and slept, but every day he visited the hospital and, every day, he knew information was being withheld. He worked at the same doctor for awhile, the one with the pretty eyes and starry earrings, but she was determined not to give anything away. He moved on to a younger, handsome male resident. He didn't budge either, though his eyes were sad when they talked about anything to do with Sergio.

Finally, three weeks later, he slumped against the nurse's station in front of Sergio's room and covered his face until he felt a hand on his shoulder. The nurse from earlier, who looked on with concern. She patted his shoulder and asked if he was alright.

"I don't know. If I knew what was wrong with him, I would be."

"It wouldn't make you okay," she answered. She patted his shoulder again. "Trust me. Sometimes knowing is worse. Knowing would not make you okay."

She didn't say anything else, just went back to her work, looking guilty like he had already told him too much. He begged her to say more, but Sergio called him in, brandishing the pudding the hospital had given him.

"Trust me," he yelled, "Vanilla is really good. Iker, you gotta try this."

Iker sighed, walked back in, threw himself down in the green chair next to Sergio's bed. "Three weeks and I still don't know? Really? Isn't all this secrecy a litlte bit excessive?"

Sergio groaned and used his knife to try and open the pudding. He looked back up at Iker and, in the split second his eyes weren't trained on the knife in his hands, it slipped through his fingers too quickly, slicing through his arm. Not deep and not bleeding too profusely, he clutched it, went white, then let go and held his other arm to keep Iker at bay.

But Iker moved forward and grabbed a napkin to staunch the flow of blood, yelling for a nurse. It was a small cut, but Sergio was in the hospital for fuck's sake-- what if it turned into something much worse? It was already bleeding more than he thought, seeping through the napkin and wetting his fingers.

The nurse took over immediately, bandaging Sergio within seconds, forcing him back against the bed to calm down. "Mr. Ramos," she said sternly, "Don't fight me on this. Do not fight me on this. Lay back and I'll get you ice or pain meds. What is your pain right now?"

Sergio ignored her. He pointed at Iker's scarlet hand, breathing hard and sweating, coughing until he was out of breath. "His hand. Get his. Get it off him. Get it--" He started coughing again, waving wildly until the nurse noticed the blood on Iker's hand.

She paled and rushed Iker to the sink, checking his hand for wounds, asking him a series of questions he was too confused and tired to answer. He just shook his head because no, no, no, he hadn't had any open wounds and no, he and Sergio had never shared a needle or had sex, of course not.

She rushed him out, told him Sergio wasn't going to have visitors for a week. "You can come back after a week. I'm sorry. It's just how his doctor likes to do things. If there's an incident, we have to shut down the room until everything is safe." She handed Iker his coat. "Come back Monday. You can have an hour extra with him."

+

He came back Monday, but the bed was empty.

His heart was racing, and he approached the desk, as if in slow motion. The curly-haired doctor stopped in front of him, paled, said something but he didn't hear. "We tried to reach you," she repeated. She put a hand on his shoulder, and all of a sudden, he knew. He just knew. "We tried to get a hold of you," she said again like he hadn't heard. "It happened last night and we couldn't find-- we called his grandmother instead."

"I was here with him," Iker whispered, and he felt himself sliding to the ground. The doctor had her star earrings back in. "I was here the whole time and you told me I had to come back in a week and I missed--" He felt the blood drain from his face, bent over to puke, and she shoved a trash can in his hands.

When he was finished, he wiped his mouth and felt the burn at the back of his throat. Tears burned his eyes. There was a lump at the back of his throat he couldn't swallow past.

"Tell me what happened," he choked out. "I just want to know. There's no harm now. No harm now that he's--"

"Gone," she provided for him gently, holding his arm.

"No." He shook his head. "Dead. Dead. Not gone."

"Dead," she whispered, like the word might infect someone else. She hesitated, checked over her shoulder as if Sergio might still be in bed there, glaring at her and begging her not to tell anyone, especially not Iker. "You know he worked as a..." She moved her hands, clearly uncomfortable with the subject. "You know he worked as a prostitute for many years before he met you--"

"Not many years before."

"He..." She stopped uncertainly like Iker was about to explode. "Contracted something. You're welcome to see the autopsy report. I know it helps many people cope with the--"

"I don't want to cope," Iker cut in. "I don't-- I want to see his body."

But he couldn't until the funeral, and he didn't feel like going to the funeral because every bone in his body felt heavy and everything within him ached for the loss of his friend, his best friend, and the man he loved for more than eleven years-- because if he was being honest, he was just lying to himself all that time before.

He went anyway. It was raining and the casket was open. It was so packed Iker couldn't see it clearly enough. He sat next to Sergio's grandmother, stood up to say a few meaningless words. Bent down to place a kiss on his forehead, but he didn't feel like Sergio. He felt like plastic.

His grandmother was hysterical and she was the only reason Iker could keep it together. He had to be her strength now, and he provided.

They held a small gathering at his house later. Sergio's grandmother baked his favorite pie and she cried over it, begged the guests to try a slice, and no one had the hear to say no.

Iker tried speaking again and this time he was honest. No one was really listening anyway, not until he said, "I was in love with him. I was so in love with him I couldn't feel myself in it all. I would have taken his place in a heartbeat and I wish I had. I wish I had because nothing is worth it without him. I was drowning in all the love I had for him, and I never knew the last time was the last time."

"It's funny how those things work out," someone said. A priest, looked familiar, and when Iker squinted, he could almost make out the aged features of the priest in the grocery store from so many years ago. "You never know when you'll see them last."

Iker almost threw himself at him, almost picked up the half-eaten pie and threw that too, but Sergio's grandma was holding his coat and looked a second from crying, so Iker tore his coat gently from her hands and ran upstairs, up and up and up until he was back in their room, holding a photograph and crying, scrunching his eyes shut until he could almost see Sergio again, waltzing around the kitchen, preparing breakfast and padding across the floor to open the window, climbing in bed next to Iker and pressing his lips to Iker's cold forehead.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really sorry for this. I'll write a happy one next time, I promise (? maybe?)


End file.
